As the number of mental health cases increases in classrooms, early and proactive intervention must also rise, states Ed Robbins, the CEO of Fresh Start in Education
The headlines are becoming all too familiar, with reports of soaring anxiety among teenagers, rising school refusal and a growing number of children struggling to cope with everyday classroom life dominating the education pages.
While the statistics paint a bleak picture, they don’t fully capture the real crisis playing out in classrooms up and down the country – one that teachers are left to manage, often without the time, resources or training to do so.
Across the education system, mental health has become one of the biggest challenges of our time. Anxiety, depression, self-harm and trauma-related difficulties aren’t rare or isolated anymore; they are alarmingly commonplace in the day-to-day reality of schooling.
Teachers are encountering pupils who can’t face walking through the school gates, are paralysed by perfectionism or who lash out because that feels safer than admitting they are scared or lost.
Mental health cases: The rising tide
The data paints an equally grim picture. According to NHS Digital, in 2023, one in five children and young people aged eight to 25 had a probable mental health disorder – up from one in nine in 2017. Referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services [CAMHS] have soared, but the support simply hasn’t kept pace. Many families wait months or even years for help, and by the time it arrives, problems have often gotten worse, and the child’s relationship with education may have broken down entirely.
Meanwhile, the burden has shifted to schools. Teachers are expected to act as counsellors, behaviour managers and safeguarding officers, all while delivering a demanding academic curriculum. Many do so with extraordinary care and commitment, offering safe spaces, listening ears and adaptations to help children cope. Still, they are not mental-health professionals, nor should they be. Expecting them to fill systemic gaps in clinical provision is unsustainable and risks burnout for both staff and students.
Early intervention must mean early
We constantly talk about ‘early intervention’ in policy circles, but it’s more of a slogan than a practice. Support usually begins once a crisis is already in motion, for example, after a pupil has stopped attending or after exclusion becomes inevitable. By this point, opportunities to intervene gently and prevent escalation have usually long passed.
If we’re serious about early intervention, we need to take action at the first signs of distress. Subtle changes in behaviour, such as a child becoming unusually withdrawn, restless or resistant, should be recognised as possible indicators that they’re struggling, not just put down to disobedience. Staff need training and confidence to respond with compassion, as well as clear pathways to refer young people to appropriate support. That might include school-based counsellors, wellbeing teams or partnerships with external specialists.
We also need flexibility in what ‘education’ looks like. For some pupils, the traditional classroom can feel overwhelming. Smaller group settings, one-to-one tuition or alternative provision [even temporarily] can help rebuild confidence and reignite a love of learning. These approaches shouldn’t be stigmatised as failures, but rather seen as essential parts of a responsive and inclusive system.
Building a culture of care
Public awareness of children’s mental health has improved in recent years, with campaigns helping reduce stigma and encouraging open conversations. But awareness alone doesn’t change much if the infrastructure to respond still falls short. Schools need consistent, long-term funding for wellbeing provision, not just short-term pilot projects that disappear when budgets get tight.
They need pastoral staff who are trained, supported, and properly valued, as well as space within the timetable for wellbeing and social-emotional learning, recognising that these aren’t ‘add-ons’ but essential for academic progress. A child who feels unsafe, unseen, or unheard will struggle to learn, regardless of the quality of the teaching.
Creating a culture of care also needs to extend outside the classroom. Parents need guidance and partnership, not judgment, and health, education and social services must work together rather than in silos. National policymakers should also recognise that wellbeing is a collective responsibility, not something that can be outsourced to overstretched schools.
The human cost of inaction
When children’s mental health needs go unmet, the consequences are lifelong. Research shows that poor mental health cases in adolescence increases the risk of unemployment, physical illness and social isolation in adulthood. The economic cost is enormous, but the personal toll on young people, families and communities is incalculable.
Despite this, the system remains reactive. We wait for problems to become crises, attendance to collapse or disciplinary issues to spiral, and only then do we act.
It’s a false economy. A single early-intervention worker can prevent years of costly specialist involvement down the line, and a flexible learning plan can stop a child from disappearing from education altogether.
Rethinking what support looks like
Early intervention isn’t only about faster access to services – it has the potential to change the narrative completely. Instead of viewing mental health as something separate from learning, we should see it as intertwined with every aspect of education. A calm and nurturing classroom, a teacher who notices subtle signs of distress and a curriculum that values emotional literacy alongside academic rigour are key to enabling young people to succeed in the increasingly pressured world we live in today.
There’s also a need to move away from the ‘one size fits all’ model of schooling. Not every child will thrive in large, busy environments. For some, smaller, more personalised settings make all the difference, not because they lower expectations, but because they create the stability and trust that learning requires.
A call to action
The mental health crisis among children and young people shouldn’t be brushed aside and seen as inevitable. The fact is, it’s the result of choices – political, social and educational – that can be changed. We can choose to invest in prevention rather than crisis management, to fund early-help services that actually intervene early and to build an education system that places wellbeing at its heart, not at its margins.
Every teacher who spots the quiet child slipping through the cracks, every parent battling to be heard, and every practitioner who refuses to give up understands what’s at stake here. What we need now is a collective shift from patching up problems to preventing them.
When we intervene early, we don’t just prevent breakdowns, we open doors and give children the chance to rediscover confidence, connection and joy in learning. That’s ultimately the true purpose of education – not simply to pass exams, but to build lives that are hopeful, healthy and happy.
